


Porcelain

by cypress_tree



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Love Poems, M/M, Pictures, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:55:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypress_tree/pseuds/cypress_tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a quote from Hounds: “If I wanted poetry, I’d read John’s e-mails to his girlfriends. Much funnier.”  Sherlock starts finding evidence that John has been writing poetry.  About him.  A jpg!fic, aka fic-with-pictures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Porcelain

**Author's Note:**

> Also available translated into Chinese on [mtslash](http://www.mtslash.com/viewthread.php?tid=72907&extra=page%3D2%26amp%3Bfilter%3Dtype%26amp%3Btypeid%3D13) (registration required). Thank you, Rosemarry!

 

 

“If I wanted poetry, I’d read John’s e-mails to his girlfriends. Much funnier.”  
\- Sherlock, episode 2.02: The Hounds of Baskerville

\---

  
It was the first kiss that led to the first poem, and it was the pepper powder that led to the first kiss. It started on a rainy Sunday afternoon, while Sherlock was working on an experiment in the kitchen, and John was reading the paper in the living room. He was just about to turn the page when he heard Sherlock sneeze, then curse. When John looked up, Sherlock was covered in a speckled white powder, a cloud of it still hovering around his face. He pushed away from the table, rubbing at his unprotected eyes.

“Are you alright?” John asked. He went into the kitchen to help, pulling Sherlock’s hands away from his face. “Don’t rub, you’ll just make it worse.” Sherlock’s eyes were watering, and he was blinking furiously.

“What was that?” asked John. “Please don’t tell me it was toxic.”

Sherlock shook his head. “No, not this time...just talc powder, mostly. And a bit of pepper.”

“Well that’s going to sting.”

Sherlock tried to rub at his eyes again and frowned when John gripped his wrists to stop him. “Yes, thank you, I’d gathered as much.” He swore under his breath and continued to blink, tears spilling down his cheeks unwillingly.

John pushed him down, forcing him to sit. “Stay here and keep blinking to flush it out. I think I have some saline solution.”

When John returned with a bottle of saline and some cotton balls, Sherlock was leaning over in his chair, brushing powder out of his hair and onto the floor. John paused in the hallway, briefly studying the curve of Sherlock’s back. Something tender unfurled in his stomach, and he walked over, putting the saline bottle down on the table.

“Here, let me,” he said. “You’re missing spots.” Sherlock didn’t look up, but lay his arms in his lap, allowing John to run one hand through his hair as talc powder fell like snow on the tiles. John started with a strong, practical ruffle. “You might have to shower to get it all out,” he said. His hand started to slow until it was obvious to both of them that he wasn’t so much cleaning Sherlock’s hair as he was caressing it. When John’s hand stilled completely on the back of Sherlock’s head, Sherlock looked up. His eyes were still wet and red.

John chuckled. “Look what you did...Why weren’t you wearing safety goggles?”

“I wasn’t anticipating a sneeze,” muttered Sherlock. “Usually I can control them.” John just smiled and shook his head, clucking quietly. He tilted Sherlock’s face up and to one side to rinse his eyes with saline. Droplets of liquid clung to his eyelashes.

“Does that feel better?” John asked, when he was done. Sherlock blinked hard once more and nodded. “Good. Now close your eyes for a bit and I’ll wash your face.”

“I’m quite capable of washing my own face,” Sherlock grumbled, but he closed his eyes anyway.

John wet a cotton ball and smoothed it over Sherlock’s face, picking up traces of powder and pepper in the hollows of his eyes. His expression was serene and trusting. John's fingertips slid over the top of the cotton ball so that they brushed over Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock opened one eye.

“Close your eyes,” John said, just above a whisper. He used his thumb to wipe a particularly large and stubborn flake of pepper from Sherlock’s eyelashes. He lingered for just a moment over Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock opened his eyes again, and they both became very quiet and still. John’s heartbeat seemed to thunder in his ears, and it took him a couple of seconds before he remembered to pull his hand away from Sherlock’s face. Their eyes met, and there was a moment where they came to a silent agreement.

Sherlock tilted his face up and parted his lips just slightly. John caught his breath, leaned down, and pressed a very soft and gentle kiss to Sherlock’s mouth. When Sherlock reached out blindly to grip his hand, John smiled and kissed him again.  He pulled back, and was slightly amused to see a blush across Sherlock’s cheeks.

“Well, this wasn’t how I imagined it happening,” he said softly.

“You imagined this would happen?”

“I hoped it would.”

Sherlock squeezed his hand, his eyes suddenly wide and more piercing than usual.

“Is this...okay?” asked John. Sherlock nodded, silently. “Well...in that case, is your optometry emergency over now? Because I would really like it if we could—”

Sherlock didn’t give him a chance to finish before they were kissing again.

 

\---

That night, lying alone in bed, John couldn’t stop thinking about Sherlock’s eyes, wide and clear and intensely focused on him. He was inspired to write something, and toyed with a pen in one hand, his notebook lying on his chest.

As far back as he could remember, he had always written love poetry. He would often give poems as gifts to his girlfriends or boyfriends. It was very well-received all but once: his last girlfriend before Afghanistan had taken it not-so-seriously. He still got a flush of embarrassment when he remembered how he spent three days perfecting a poem for her, only to have her raise an eyebrow and hold back a laugh. “Didn’t take you for the Shakespeare type,” she’d said. He found the poem in her flat a week later, being used as a coaster for a mug of room-temperature coffee. They hadn’t lasted very long after that.

John had been wanting to write about Sherlock for quite some time. If there was ever a person to write poetry about, it was the stunningly gorgeous and infuriatingly Byronic Sherlock Holmes. But he wasn’t entirely sure how Sherlock would take it. He didn’t know the extent of Sherlock’s feelings for him, and he didn’t want to scare him away, stopping...whatever this was that had happened.

Not to mention, Sherlock didn’t seem the type to enjoy poetry. Once, John had caught him on his laptop, reading a poem that John had written to his then-girlfriend with a grin on his face. When John yelled at him and took the laptop away, Sherlock had told him that there were a few grammatical errors he wanted to correct.

John sighed, running through a hundred descriptions of Sherlock’s eyes in his head. He picked up his pen and wrote down as much as he could before he forgot it.

 

 

 

 

 

_[eyes - cool, clear, bluegreen, greenblue, sea, *tidal, arctic, ~~ice~~  
within ~~his~~ eyes, within your eyes, ~~within~~ into your tidal eyes  
*stormsea, stormy, storming, ~~gorgeous~~ ]_

 

Satisfied at the promising start, and starting to get tired, he shoved the notebook under his pillow. He fell asleep wondering how to describe the feeling of Sherlock’s eyelashes against his skin.

 

\---

It was almost a week after the pepper powder incident when Sherlock first suspected that John was writing about him. They were in the living room at first, John making a shopping list, and Sherlock sitting in his chair across from him, watching. Every now and then, John would look up and catch Sherlock’s eyes. When Sherlock raised a questioning eyebrow at him, John just looked back down at his list. He added a few more things, then left it on the arm of his chair and went into the kitchen. While he was filling the kettle with water, Sherlock remembered something.

“I need more pepper,” he said. “A lot of pepper. Ground black. At least five or six of those little 400 gram bottles.”

“Do I even want to know what you’re doing with two thousand grams of black pepper?”

“Don’t forget it. It’s imperative.” Sherlock paused. “I’m writing it down.”

“Don’t write it down, you’ll mess up my list. I have things written in a specific order.”

As usual, Sherlock didn’t listen. He snatched the list off the arm of John’s chair while John’s back was still turned and scrawled “pepper—black” at the bottom. As he glanced over the rest of the list, he noticed something out of place. Written in the bottom corner of the page was just one word accompanied by one question mark: “porcelain?”

 

 

 

 

_[13/6: *milk, ~~eggs~~ , feta cheese, cinnamon, honey, red onions, potatoes, some kind of fruit, pepper—black, porcelain]_

Sherlock frowned at it until John took the list away from him and handed him a mug of tea.

"I write things down in order of where they are in the store," he said. "That way I don't have to keep going from aisle to—"

"Are you purchasing porcelain?" interrupted Sherlock. He noted John's sudden discomfort.

"What? No, what are you..." Sherlock looked at John as if he were trying to figure him out. “No, Sherlock, I am not buying porcelain.”

John’s cheeks were turning pink. He shoved the list into his pocket and went back into the kitchen. Once there, he clearly didn’t know what to do with himself, because he stood over the sink for a moment before opening a cabinet at random and searching for something that he apparently couldn’t find. Sighing, he went back to sit down in his chair, and refused to meet Sherlock's gaze. Sherlock looked at him with narrowed eyes, but didn’t say anything.

 

\---

Two weeks later, Sherlock’s suspicions were verified. John was at work, and Sherlock was without a case and bored. He was relaxing on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, kicking things off the edges in a huff. A scrap of paper stuck to his heel and fluttered to the ground when he pulled his foot back. He paused for a moment, then picked it up. There was one line written on it, in John’s handwriting.

 

 

 

 

 

_[porcelain storm]_   


Sherlock raised an eyebrow and sat down in front of the table to sift through the papers that were piled on top. Eventually, he found two more scraps of paper, folded together. They must have somehow fallen out of John’s pocket, as it was unlike him to leave something so personal in their shared space.

 

 

 

_[smashing into sand and skin / too much s?, please, love devour me]_   


Sherlock was slightly surprised. Things hadn’t progressed much since snogging like teenagers after the pepper powder incident. They had kissed several times since then, but Sherlock could tell that John was insecure; holding back for some reason.

Sherlock was frustrated, and had begun testing John to see his reactions to various stimuli. He had been sitting closer than usual when they watched television, which caused John to continually glance at him out of the corner of his eye, smiling more than usual. He had brushed John’s fingers with his own when John handed him a mug of tea. This caused John to clench and unclench his hand for the next 10-15 minutes. The last time they were kissing on the sofa, he had tried to take things further, but had only just touched John’s belt buckle when John smiled shyly, and pulled his hand away, saying “shh, slow down.” Sherlock had stopped immediately, of course, but he didn’t understand why John had asked him to, since he was clearly half-hard in his trousers.

Sherlock looked back down at the scraps of paper in his hand, running one finger over their torn edges, reverently. He folded them back up and put them in the pocket of his dressing gown.

 

\---

The next time they were at a crime scene, John shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and found that the scraps of paper were missing. There was a brief moment of panic where he pulled his pockets inside out, patted down the rest of his jacket as if they were hiding in the lining, and looked around him to see if they had fallen out. Sherlock turned to him with a questioning expression.

“Lose something?” he asked.

John shook his head. “Um. No. I mean yes, but not...here. I must have...they must have fallen out at home.”

Sherlock looked back at the body on the floor of the hotel room. He had told everyone to leave except for John, who he asked only to keep back a bit. He knelt down next to the victim and pressed two fingers to his lips in thought.

John gave up on his scraps of paper and leaned against the wall, opening the notebook he used for case notes. He couldn’t help admiring Sherlock’s profile. Sherlock was kneeling completely still, shoulders hunched, curls in his eyes, coat pooling around his legs. John flipped to an empty page and started writing down every word that popped into his head as he looked at Sherlock.

 

 

  


 

_[chilled, cold fire, ~~ebony~~ , grace, serene, elegance, arrogance, arroglence, devoid, alarming, dark, ~~charming~~ , cat-like/feline]_

 

“John.” John startled when he heard Sherlock’s voice. He looked up to see him motioning for John to come closer. “Tell me what you think of this puncture wound.” John stuffed the notebook in his pocket and knelt down next to Sherlock. Their shoulders brushed when Sherlock leaned over to point. Sherlock turned to look at him, and John’s heartbeat sped up.

 

\---

John never intended on showing the completed poem to Sherlock—at least not yet—but Sherlock found it anyway.

John had slept in uncharacteristically late that morning, but didn’t seem to realize it. He had come downstairs smiling and humming, and set a sheet of paper next to his laptop before making breakfast. He was just sitting down to eat, chewing as he began transcribing from the paper to the computer, when Sherlock mentioned the fact that he had already missed his usual bus and would have to catch a cab if he wanted to arrive at work on time. John jerked his head up from his computer, looked at the time, swore loudly, and closed the piece of paper inside his laptop before grabbing his coat and rushing out the door.

“I’ll be back before dinner!” he called, running down the stairs.

Sherlock had been watching John with curiosity for most of the morning. He knew that John wasn’t typing up case notes, and judging by recent evidence, as well as John’s good mood, it seemed logical to deduce that he was typing up a poem. When he peered out the window and saw John flagging down a taxi, he waited just a couple more minutes before sitting down at the table and pulling the piece of paper out of John’s laptop.

 

 

 

  
_[Porcelain_

_I think I'm drowning in your tidal bluegreen_   
_your ring of silvered seastorm,_   
_arctic iceberg depths._

_those waves I'm sure, could shatter_   
_with heat, my heart. with touch._   
_they're porcelain._   
_shards of seaglass_   
_smashing into sand._

_(your crests could creak and crack.  
how I wish to be the fire that breaks them.)_

_J.H.W.  
16/7/12]_

 

Sherlock sat back, slightly stunned. He had made fun of the poetry that John sent his girlfriends, but this...this was something else entirely. The knowledge that it was written about him was flattering. But there was also the fact that it was tangible evidence of John’s thoughts and emotions; a textual explanation of what was going through John’s mind when he looked at Sherlock. It may not make much sense on the surface, but it was like a glimpse into John’s brain and its symbolic process.

Sherlock read the poem dozens of times over, until he was sure he had it memorized.

 

\---

That night, John came home tired, but in a good mood, due to a relatively easy shift. He hung up his jacket and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, only to find that a steaming mug was already waiting for him. He took a sip and smiled, looking up at Sherlock, who was slouching down in his chair with his eyes closed and his violin bow in one hand.

“Thank you, Sherlock.” John sat down in his own chair and nudged at Sherlock’s foot when his flatmate didn’t respond.

Sherlock opened his eyes. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Well. I heated more water than I needed, and I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“You didn’t want boiled water to go to waste?” Sherlock didn’t respond, but looked at his bow as if it were the most interesting thing in the room. “You can admit that you did something nice for me, Sherlock. It won’t kill you.”

Sherlock shrugged and watched as John sipped at his tea.

“Still no case?” asked John. Sherlock shook his head. “You must be bored. Am I going to find bullet holes in the walls again?”

“I kept myself busy in other ways.”

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or afraid.”

Sherlock paused for a moment. “I found your poem.”

John’s eyes widened just a bit before he skilfully neutralized his facial expression. “Sorry, what?”

“The poem that you wrote about me. That you were typing up this morning and shoved into your laptop before you left.’”

John pursed his lips. “What were you doing on my laptop?”

“Don’t change the subject, John.”

John stared down at his tea. “I suppose you made corrections to it. Grammar and punctuation errors everywhere, probably. Excessive use of metaphor, too much sentiment..."

Sherlock shook his head. “No. No, I wouldn’t change a thing.” He put his bow down, and looked at John. John began to feel a bit awkward, so he took a sip of tea to relieve some tension.

Sherlock stood up. “Put the tea down, John.”

“Why? Is there chemical residue in my mug?”

“No,” said Sherlock, with a smirk. “Because I’m about to sit in your lap, and then I’m going to kiss you. I don’t think you’ll be adverse to the kiss, but you’ll probably spill tea on the both of us, and that would be highly uncomfortable.”

John’s eyes were wide, his mug still hovering in front of his mouth. He licked his lips and put the mug down. Sherlock nudged one knee to either side of John’s hips, and sat down on his lap. They looked at each other for a moment before Sherlock leaned forward glacially slowly and pressed a very soft, yet firm kiss to John’s lips. A tiny bit of tension left John’s body.

“Are you...um...does this mean—” Sherlock silenced him with a second kiss, longer and deeper. John’s mouth was still warm from the tea, and Sherlock could taste it on John’s tongue.

“I liked what you wrote,” Sherlock said. John flushed a rather endearing shade of pink, and Sherlock leaned in to kiss him again. “You know, your poetry is much better when it’s about me and not some girlfriend.”

John chuckled. “I think you might be biased.” He cupped the back of Sherlock’s head in his hand and pulled him closer, kissing the hollow on the side of his nose. Sherlock hummed and moved to capture John’s lips.

“Why were you hiding it from me?” he asked. John looked down, toying with the seam on the side of Sherlock’s trousers. “You were embarrassed,” continued Sherlock. “Why? I thought it was understood that we were mutually attracted to each other.”

John finally met his eyes. “Mutual attraction is one thing, Sherlock, but I—” he bit his lip and looked away again. “I didn’t want to scare you off with...I don’t know. My feelings.”

“Didn’t my kissing you back indicate that I have feelings for you, too?” Sherlock looked confused.

John just sighed. “Sherlock, people kiss all the time. It doesn’t always... Well, I didn’t want to assume. Sometimes people just get caught up in the moment, and they do things they don’t mean.”

Sherlock took his hand. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not like most people.” John smiled.

“‘Porcelain’ you wrote, right?” Sherlock asked, teasingly. He placed John’s hand on his hip and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the back of the chair to trap John in front of him. “‘I’ve heard my skin described as ‘porcelain,’ but never my eyes.” He toyed with the top buttons of John’s shirt. “And you wrote that you wished to ‘break them.’ That’s very interesting. Would I be correct if I were to interpret it sexually?” John answered by kissing him and gripping his arse to pull them closer together.

"Oh, I think that’s a yes," Sherlock purred. He rocked his hips forward and trailed his fingers down to outline the growing bulge in John's trousers. An embarrassing moan escaped John’s throat.

That’s when Sherlock’s phone vibrated.

They both stared at the phone for a bit as it jumped across the side table. Lestrade’s name glowed brightly on the screen.

“Are you going to get that?” asked John, raising one eyebrow.

Sherlock bit his lip. “Well I...I don’t want to stop kissing you.”

“You want to take this case, though.” It wasn't a question.  Sherlock’s face stilled, and a flash of guilt passed over his expression. “You can have us both, you know,” said John. “Me and the case.”

Sherlock looked down at him with surprise, his brow furrowed. “Thank you,” he murmured, solemnly.

John watched Sherlock’s eyes light as he read the text. When Sherlock looked up from his phone, John nodded. “Let me put on my shoes and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Can we...continue this later?” asked Sherlock.

John nodded. “Later. Definitely.”

 

\---

"Later" did not come as quickly as they'd hoped. Sherlock was able to figure out where the victim had worked, which led to where the victim had lived, which led to them visiting the victim's flat in the middle of a break-in. They chased him across three rooftops and had him trapped in an empty tool shed before he could climb down the fire escape.

This would have been great, if the man who had broken in had turned out to be the murderer. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. In fact, he had nothing to do with the murder at all, which meant they had to go back to the victim's flat to find the clues that they hadn’t bothered to look for the first time because they were too busy chasing a small-time thief across the rooftops of London. This did not sit well with Sherlock.

The victim’s flat was not very helpful, and Sherlock was incredibly frustrated. When John insisted they go back to Baker Street to get in at least a couple of hours of sleep, Sherlock had stormed into their flat and thrown his coat on the ground, then flopped on the sofa in a huff. All thoughts of continuing what they had started earlier in the evening were officially gone.

“Tea?” asked John, wearily. Sherlock didn’t answer, but John made him a cup anyway. He set it down on the coffee table and sat by Sherlock’s feet at the end of the sofa.

“You need to get some sleep,” he said. “Just a couple of hours. It’s almost four in the morning.”

Sherlock pulled his feet as far away from John as he could. John sighed.

“Sherlock, seriously. Please sleep.”

“I’m thinking, John. I do not have time to sleep while I’m thinking.”

“Maybe if you slept a bit you’d have an easier time thinking. Clear your thoughts.”

“How would you know how my mind works?” Sherlock snapped.

“I don’t, but my medical license says that I know how the human body works, and—”

“You do not and cannot understand. Have you ever solved a case? Maybe if you spent more time thinking about logic and less time thinking about iambic pentameter—”

“I don’t write in iambic pentameter,” John said with a wry grin. “And you need to calm down. This isn’t the first time you’ve been stuck, and it won’t be the last. You’ll figure it out, you just—”

“Need to listen to you? An amateur poet's opinion? How is your opinion at all relevant?”

John rolled his eyes. “My poetry has nothing to do with this. You know, I don’t understand why you feel the need to be such an arse all the time.”

“And I don’t understand why you feel the need to concoct such juvenile platitudes. I mean, really, John. Drowning in my eyes? That’s so clichéd it’s almost insulting.”

“You seemed to like my poetry eight hours ago.”

“Yes, well eight hours ago I was certain we were going to fuck. Clearly I was wrong on more than one account.”

John fell silent, and Sherlock instantly regretted what he had said. He stared unseeingly at the sofa, refusing to make eye contact. When he felt John stand and walk across the room, he looked up.

“John, I—Where are you going?”

John didn’t answer. He slammed the door on his way out.

 

\---

Sherlock tossed and turned on the sofa, but couldn’t get comfortable, and couldn’t think. Five minutes after John left, Sherlock threw a book out the window. Ten minutes after John left, Sherlock started pacing back and forth between the kitchen and living room. Half an hour after John left, Sherlock walked up to John’s room, stood in the doorway to peer inside, and nudged at a jumper lying on the floor with his bare foot. He huffed out an angry breath and stomped back downstairs, flopping onto the sofa again and clutching a pillow in his arms.

 

\---

When John arrived back home, it was nearly 6AM, and the quiet stillness of the flat suggested that Sherlock was either sleeping, or had left. John’s anger had all but dissipated, giving way mostly to dull hurt, exasperation, and exhaustion. He walked up the stairs to his room to find that Sherlock was lying in his bed, curled up on his side with his back facing the door. John could tell by the tension in his muscles that he was still awake. After stripping down to boxers and a t-shirt, he lay down, curled behind Sherlock. He hesitated only a moment before wrapping an arm around him. Sherlock relaxed, marginally.

“I didn’t mean it,” he whispered. “Any of it.”

“I know,” said John. He gave Sherlock a squeeze, and Sherlock relaxed further. “But you’re still an arse.”

Sherlock put one hand over John’s where it settled over his stomach. They slowly fell asleep.

 

\---

The next morning, when John woke, Sherlock was gone, and there was a hot mug of tea sitting on the nightstand next to him. He smiled and sat up. Sherlock was playing one of John’s favourite violin pieces downstairs. John knew an apology when he heard one. He took a sip of tea and went down to the living room to find Sherlock standing in his usual place by the window. He turned to John as the piece ended, then was quiet for a moment.

“I solved the case,” he said.

John nodded. “This morning?”

“Yes. While you were sleeping.”

“So I was right?” asked John. Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at him. “Sleeping did do your great brain some good.”

“I suppose.” Sherlock gave John a long look, then put down his violin and walked over to him until they were standing only centimetres apart.

“Your poetry’s not juvenile,” he murmured. “I like it. I like knowing that you think of me like that. That you spend time choosing words and sounds and putting them in the right order.”

John looked doubtful. Sherlock traced his collarbone under his t-shirt with one outstretched finger.

“No one has ever written poetry for me before,” he said. “I’d like it if you continued.”

John smiled and kissed him.

 

\---

That afternoon was lazy and uneventful. Besides the gentle murmur of rain, all that could be heard was the soft clink of glass as Sherlock arranged beakers and tubes on the kitchen table. John was lounging on the sofa, reading a medical journal that had magically reappeared on the coffee table after Sherlock had cleared away some of his clutter. He flipped to an article that he had bookmarked as “to-read” at least a month ago. When he got to the correct page, his jaw dropped open. For a moment he thought that Sherlock had randomly scribbled all over the text. But that wasn’t it; it certainly wasn’t random. John’s breath caught when he realized what Sherlock had done.

 

 

 

  


 

_[the heart is more data  
exclusively focused on you]_

It was a love poem. John re-read the words over and over. He looked at Sherlock, who was leaning over a Petri dish with an eyedropper in one hand. Sherlock must have sensed something, because he looked up, and their eyes met. Sherlock glanced down and saw John’s fingertips resting at the edges of the poem. A flicker of recognition passed over his face. He put down the eyedropper and took off his safety goggles, placing them silently on the table before looking back up at John. In seconds, John had crossed the space between them.

“I may have had some extra time after solving the case this morning,” Sherlock said. “I decided to use it wisely.”

John pulled Sherlock up from his chair and kissed him, hard.

“Thank you,” he murmured. He kissed Sherlock again, softly, over and over. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Sherlock held tight to John’s waist. He pulled John’s shirt out of his trousers and slipped his hands underneath to smooth them over his back. John smiled into their kiss. He couldn’t stop the words that suddenly left his mouth.

“I love you.” Sherlock’s eyes flew open, and John panicked. He jerked away. “That’s why—that’s why I was holding back. Because I didn’t know what you wanted, and I didn’t—I didn’t want to get hurt.”

Sherlock’s face scrunched up as if he were in physical pain. John suffered through two panicked heartbeats before Sherlock gripped the sides of his head and crushed his lips in a kiss.

Sherlock became a whirlwind. He quickly divested John of his shirt, then spun them around so that John was pressed against the table. His hands smoothed down John’s neck and chest, his fingertips swirling over John’s nipples. John sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back to laugh, relieved.

“Well if I had known you'd approve...” he said, his voice becoming raspy.

Sherlock grinned and mouthed at John’s neck. John shivered at the little huffs of breath over his skin. With one hand, Sherlock pushed back the clutter on the table and motioned for John to sit. He did, wrapping his legs around Sherlock’s thighs to pull him closer. He started to unbutton Sherlock's shirt as Sherlock smiled into his hair.

"Describe me," Sherlock murmured.

John pushed Sherlock's shirt off his shoulders, marvelling over his skin. "Describe you?" Sherlock nodded. "I don't know if I can do this on command. There’s an editing process, you know."

"Don't care. Just want your voice. Your words." Sherlock unbuckled John's belt and tossed it to the floor. John felt his breaths coming quicker in anticipation.

"You're elusive. A sliver of a thing. A wisp of smoke."

Sherlock started kissing a line down John's chest. He slid one hand into John's trousers, palming him briefly before pulling his hand back out. John gave a grunt of protest.

"You're a tease," he said. "You're like a fire licking at my skin. You make me ache."

Sherlock grinned. "Where do you ache?" he drawled. "I wouldn't want to hurt you."

"Oh don't you dare," John chuckled. "Two can play at that game." He unbuttoned Sherlock's trousers and slid one hand inside. Sherlock pressed into him, ducking his head down to bite gently at John's clavicle.

For a moment, words were forgotten. John could feel Sherlock swelling under his palm, and he bit his lip before Sherlock tilted his face up and kissed him. Suddenly, the layers of clothing between them were too much. Sherlock tugged at John's waistband and John lifted himself up to let Sherlock pull off his trousers. Sherlock's eyes widened and grew darker, and his breath hitched.

"What?" asked John, with a smile.

Sherlock ran his hands down John's arms. "Lift yourself up again. But...stay up."

John had an inkling of what Sherlock wanted to see. He leaned back on his arms and lifted himself up, his legs tightening around Sherlock to maintain balance. Sherlock was studying the straining of John's body, touching his arms and abdominal muscles.

"You're strong," he said, his voice a quiet rumble.

A flush of arousal swept through John. "Well it's not that hard to lift my own body weight. You could probably do the same. Not that you weigh much."

Sherlock was only half listening, still too busy outlining John's muscles under his skin. John swallowed, hard. Sherlock was studying him with an intensity he usually reserved for crime scenes. He suddenly leaned in, kissing John messily, and pulling his boxers off with a sharp tug. John gasped and gave a soft, short "oh" before dropping back down on the table.

Sherlock grinned into their kiss as John kicked his socks off behind his back. He pulled John closer, his still-clothed erection grinding against John's naked one. He huffed out a breath, and John moaned.

"Fuck, you need to take those off," John said, breathily. He pulled Sherlock's trousers and pants off of his thin hips and let them fall to the ground. Sherlock stepped out of them and kicked them aside. He toed his socks off, causing them to grind together again as he shifted his weight from leg to leg.

"God, that feels good," said John. He leaned back to look Sherlock over. "You're so bloody gorgeous."

Sherlock kissed him. "Say it to me again," he said, reaching between their bodies to take both their cocks in one hand.  John's eyelids fluttered.

"Say what?" he asked.  Sherlock looked down at him through half-lidded eyes, and John understood. "I love you," he said, simply. Sherlock started to stroke them, lazily. "God, I feel like I've loved you for so long." He was beginning to feel dazed. "So, so long."

Sherlock sped up, and started leaning over the table, his legs no longer wanting to cooperate. He pressed his face into John's temple, short breaths brushing over his ear. John's arms wrapped around him, fingers digging so hard into Sherlock's shoulders that they both knew he would bruise.

"Christ, how I've wanted you,” stuttered John. “You can't imagine the want."

"Oh, I think I can," said Sherlock, softly. He smeared their precome with his palm, and John gasped.

“Fuck, Sherlock...”

“Not this time,” said Sherlock, grinning. “But next time, for sure.”

All the breath left John’s lungs, and he gave a short cry before coming into Sherlock's hand. His nails left marks in Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock stroked him through his orgasm, kissing his temple and the top of his head as John murmured his name over and over. John’s hands slowly lost their grip. Soon, the room was silent except for John's gasping breaths, and Sherlock's strained ones. Sherlock was still, ignoring his own need as he waited for John to come back to himself.

“I wouldn’t do that for just anyone,” he said, quietly.

John chuckled. “What, the hand job?"

“The poem.”

"I was joking. I know." John smiled, then said again, softer, “I know." Sherlock was still. After a moment of silence, John pressed a kiss over Sherlock's heart.

Sherlock looked down at him. “What you said...You do know that I feel the same...Don't you?  I mean, it should be obvious that I love you, too."

John’s eyebrows knit together, and he pulled Sherlock in to kiss him again.

"When did this happen?" he asked, his voice affectionate and teasing.  Seeing that Sherlock was still hard, he wiped his own come into his hand and began stroking him.

Sherlock shuddered. "Um...I don't know...I...God, I can't—with you—" John kissed him silent.

“How close are you?” he asked, speaking into Sherlock’s ear. Sherlock leaned forward, pressing his forehead into John’s shoulder. A tiny whimper escaped his throat, and John nosed at his hair.

“You’re like midnight, Sherlock. You’re the night sky. The North Star.” Sherlock’s breaths huffed over John’s skin. “You helped me find my way. You’re celestial navigation. My guiding light.” He ran his tongue down Sherlock’s jawline. “You’re the brightest point in my constellation. My lodestar. My Polaris.”

Sherlock gasped, and all of his muscles tightened at once. He whispered John's name, and his eyes seemed to break into a thousand porcelain pieces.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this fic totally took over my brain.  I would like to take the time to thank my college poetry teachers (who hopefully will never read this), and Benedict Cumberbatch's eyes.  Now here's where I got some things I couldn't have done it without:
> 
> John's handwriting: [Nothing You Could Do](http://www.dafont.com/nothing-you-could-do.font)  
> Sherlock's handwriting: [Signerica](http://www.dafont.com/signerica.font)
> 
> [Tea Stain Brushes by croaky](http://croaky.deviantart.com/art/28-Tea-Stain-Brushes-155376450)  
> [Ripped and Folded Brushes by YesOwl](http://masterphotoshop.deviantart.com/gallery/?set=23837089&offset=24#/d2gjb2i)  
> [Fabric Texture and Pattern Set by WebTreatsETC](http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=fabric+texture#/d2kdult)   
> [Wood Textures by nureen-REStock](http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=wood+brush#/d19hz3r)  
> [Blood Brushes by dark-dragon-stock](http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=blood+brush#/dyjpwa)   
> [Paper and Stain Brushes by TheCuraga](http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=paper+and+stain+brushes#/d1keyzh)  
> [Scratch Brushes by starwalt](http://qbrushes.net/grunge/scratch-brushes/)
> 
> [Lined paper from printablepaper.net](http://www.printablepaper.net/), which is like the neatest site ever.
> 
> That's it!  Thank you for reading.  You are beautiful.  ♥


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